Demon Slayer: Sweep The Board Review - Sleep Once Bored (First Released Apr 26, 2024)

 Demon Slayer: Sweep the Board is an unexpected take on the popular franchise that offers very little even for the most ardent fans, leaving it feeling more like filler than a compelling arc.

By: The Classic Team - Digital Academy

Discord: Classicteamdigitalacademy

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba is a wildly popular anime and manga series that stars a captivating cast of characters all seeking to protect innocents from insidious threats. My wife and I are huge fans of the show to the point that we’ve obtained dozens of Banpresto, Figurizm, and Masterlise figures for our humble collection. It’s also why I was intrigued by Demon Slayer: Sweep the Board!, a virtual board game adaptation of the series from CyberConnect 2 and Sega.

Following its release on Nintendo Switch this past April, Demon Slayer: Sweep the Board has been released on additional platforms. Unfortunately, however, it seems my wait for Sweep the Board to come to PC was not worth it. After nearly 10 hours of playing, I still have a hard time discerning just who exactly this game was made for. From clunky controls to boring minigames, Sweep the Board feels like a party game that lacks any sense of "party."

Your main goal in Demon Slayer: Sweep the Board is to amass Rank Points at the end of a match, which can be as short as five turns or as time-consuming as 30 turns. At the start of each day, players participate in a variety of minigames. There were a select few that I really enjoyed, such as Team Memory Matching which, as the term implies, is all about flipping portraits until you find a match, and Zenko’s Zealous Performance, which is akin to a musical rhythm game. My favorite, by far, is Don’t Miss a Beat! where I had to run through Tsuzumi Mansion’s twisting hallways, all while jumping over pits and razor-sharp projectiles thrown by Kyogai the Drum Demon.

My only complaint here is that boss battles against Greater Demons are still your run-of-the-mill button mash or quick-time event affairs with little variety or challenge. There are a couple of notable exceptions, such as the Daki encounter, though this is mostly because button prompts appeared in different positions onscreen, making the battle more confusing than exciting. It was disappointing to see boss battles themselves turn into dull and uninspired activities.

Sadly, these moments are few and far between in Demon Slayer: Sweep the Board. During the course of my review, I kept checking for perks that would allow me to steal goodies from other players or claim their Hashira ally as my own, but it looks like these mechanics don’t exist. Outside of a couple of consumable items--one that forces all players to move to my current location and another that makes me swap places with a target--I couldn’t create scenarios that would flip the table on another person, to everyone else’s raucous laughter.

Likewise, I was surprised to see that post-game rewards handed out by Kagaya, the mentor of the Hashira, were also random. In one match, bonus Rank Points were given to the one who spent the most gold. I then used up a lot of gold during my next run, only for the special reward to be given to the player who moved the most number of spaces. Outside of the main mode, it’s possible to retry each minigame and boss encounter in quick runs, as well as spend coins to unlock cosmetic rewards like stickers, anime avatars, alternate attires, and wallpapers, but it’s not very exciting to do.

Despite being a huge fan of the series Demon Slayer: Sweep the Board offered very little to keep me entertained. A few hours in, the experience became repetitive and tedious to a degree that it’s hard to recommend to even the most ardent of manga and anime enthusiasts. You’re better off grabbing The Hinokami Chronicles, made by the same studio, if you’re into Demon Slayer, and those who prefer party games or board games already have a plethora of other options.

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